If Vladimir and Estragon, the hapless protagonists of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," had attempted to make a comedy sketch show, they might have ended up with something like "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence." This mordant, strikingly original work from Swedish director Roy Andersson is a veritable theater of the absurd, executed with technical mastery and a healthy dose of glumness.
It's the final in the director's trilogy of films about "being a human being," which started with "Songs from the Second Floor" in 2000. Like the previous two installments, "A Pigeon" is a compendium of absurd skits that detail the joy, tragedy, tedium and frequent meaninglessness of human existence. Some are exasperating, others wonderful.
In the film's opening gambit, a portly gentleman suffers a heart attack while trying to uncork a bottle of wine, and the staff members in a ferry cafeteria ask the other customers if any of them would like to take the sandwich and beer ordered by a customer who just died at the checkout. Laughing yet? OK, maybe Andersson's humor is an acquired taste.